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NASA Makes Final Preparations to Crash Spacecraft into Asteroid

时间:2022-10-05 22:59:14

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NASA Makes Final Preparations to Crash Spacecraft into Asteroid1

The American space agency NASA is making final preparations to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid in the world's first planetary defense2 test.

The mission is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART3. The DART spacecraft launched on its trip to the asteroid last November. On September 26, it will aim to strike the asteroid to see how the crash affects the space object's path.

The test is designed to demonstrate a possible method for changing the direction of asteroids4 considered threats to Earth.

The mission's target will be an asteroid called Dimorphos, which is part of a two-body asteroid system. Dimorphos is a small "moonlet" that orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos. Didymos is about 780 meters across, while Dimorphos is 160 meters.

The asteroid system does not present any danger to Earth. But NASA says it is being targeted as a more effective way to test the crash method instead of striking a single asteroid flying through space.

The goal of the DART mission is to see how the spacecraft crash will re-direct the asteroid's path and speed. The crash will happen about 11 million kilometers from Earth.

Currently, Dimorphos completes one orbit around Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. The separation between the centers of the two asteroids is 1.18 kilometers. The DART spacecraft will aim to hit Dimorphos nearly head-on. When this happens, it will shorten the time it takes the small asteroid moonlet to orbit Didymos by several minutes, NASA explains.

Telescopes on Earth will measure the change in the orbital period.

NASA engineers have said they are hoping for a change of at least 73 seconds for the mission to be considered a success.

Earlier this month, NASA announced the DART spacecraft had gotten its first look at the asteroid system. A series of images were taken July 27 by an imaging instrument on the spacecraft. The images showed light given off by the Didymos system.

NASA said at the time the images were captured, the spacecraft was about 32 million kilometers away from the two asteroids. This made it difficult to see much of the Didymos system. But after the pictures were combined and examined, the team was able to improve the image quality and identify its location.

Elena Adams is the DART mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied5 Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. She said, "This first set of images is being used as a test to prove our imaging techniques." Adams added that the imaging instrument is what will guide the DART spacecraft to its asteroid target.

In the final hours before the crash, the spacecraft will need to see and process images of the asteroid system as it travels by itself to the target without human involvement, NASA said.

The DART operation will be captured in images taken by a CubeSat. CubeSats are small research spacecraft also known as nanosatellites.

The 14-kilogram CubeSat that will capture the images is called LICIACube. It is a project of the Italian Space Agency. It was designed and built by the Italian space engineering company Argotec. LICIACube is set to be deployed6 from the spacecraft about 10 days before the crash.

LICIACube is equipped with two separate cameras. They are designed to collect scientific data and inform the CubeSat's self-guiding system. The cameras will continually capture the asteroid crash as well as the resulting effects of the operation.

Elisabetta Dotto is a member of the LICIACube scientific team at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. She said in a statement that she and other scientists are "eager" to receive and examine the images captured by the CubeSat. "It will be so exciting to study, for the first time, the nature and structure of such weird7 objects as binary8 [near-Earth asteroids]."

Words in This Story

asteroid – n. a rocky object that goes around the sun like a planet

mission – n. a flight by an aircraft or spacecraft to perform a specific task

location – n. the place where something happens

technique – n. a method

eager – adj. wanting to do something very much

weird – adj. very unusual or strange

binary – adj. relating to two things


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1 asteroid uo1yD     
n.小行星;海盘车(动物)
参考例句:
  • Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
  • It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小,但这样的危险还是存在的。
2 defense AxbxB     
n.防御,保卫;[pl.]防务工事;辩护,答辩
参考例句:
  • The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
  • The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。
3 dart oydxK     
v.猛冲,投掷;n.飞镖,猛冲
参考例句:
  • The child made a sudden dart across the road.那小孩突然冲过马路。
  • Markov died after being struck by a poison dart.马尔科夫身中毒镖而亡。
4 asteroids d02ebba086eb60b6155b94e12649ff84     
n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 );海盘车,海星
参考例句:
  • Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星,亦称为“小型行星”,在外太空中不计其数。
  • Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。
5 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
6 deployed 4ceaf19fb3d0a70e329fcd3777bb05ea     
(尤指军事行动)使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 ); 施展; 部署; 有效地利用
参考例句:
  • Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
  • The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。
7 weird bghw8     
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的
参考例句:
  • From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来,他好像有点怪。
  • His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。
8 binary jybzWZ     
adj.二,双;二进制的;n.双(体);联星
参考例句:
  • Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
  • Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试,把这个数本身变成二进制数。

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